It’s been rumored for some time now, but the Wall Street Journal now reports it’s really going to happen: Apple plans to roll out near-field communication chips in new products for enabling easier mobile payments.

Despite having the backing of mobile giants AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile, the Isis Wallet ranked as the least-used mobile payments option in a Yankee Group report earlier this year. Then came ISIS, a group behind terrorist acts in Iraq and Syria that achieved global infamy in recent months.

As CB Insights puts it, Google Ventures “has seen a huge spike in activity in recent years.” Most of that has been near the Google “mothership” in California (Google is the firm’s sole financial backer). But Massachusetts, not New York, is the second-busiest center of investing activity for the prominent VC firm.

During the first quarter of the year, Internet and digital media companies in the Boston area added 375 jobs for a 2.2 percent gain, according to a new report from executive search firm Cook Associates.

I have no doubt that LevelUp’s high-energy, twenty-something founder Seth Priebatsch would’ve liked his mobile payment app to be more of a household name by now. Things haven’t gone that way for the company, one of Boston’s most audacious consumer tech plays of recent years.More →

Cambridge-based Leaf is making some noise today, announcing a few new additions to its leadership team.

The company, which built a mobile payment platform for small business, added Sarah McCrary as its new chief operating officer. Additionally, Leaf added Dan Smith as its vice president of engineering and Chad Kelly as its new vice president of finance.More →